The doctrine of deżerzjoni in Maltese planning law is often approached as if it were a technical rule tied to time or formal defaults. The decision in Carmelo Borg vs Planning Authority (Court of Appeal, Inferior Jurisdiction, 4 December 2025) demonstrates that this is an incomplete understanding. The doctrine operates, more fundamentally, as a finding of abandonment inferred from conduct, and more specifically from the absence of procedural initiative within the appeal itself. The strength of the judgment lies in its factual sequence, which must be understood in detail. The appeal had been pending before the Planning Appeals Board and, on 26 March 2010, was deferred sine die pending the outcome of a related planning control application (PC 46/09). This form of deferral preserved the appeal while suspending its progression. That related application was eventually decided—around 2018–2019. At that moment, the obstacle to the continuation of the appeal ceased to exist. The appeal became procedurally capable of being revived. From then on, the burden of initiative lay, in practical terms, with the appellant. No such initiative was taken. For approximately six years, the appeal remained entirely inactive. There was no request for reappointment, no attempt to regulate the proceedings, and no procedural engagement whatsoever. It was only in 2025 that the Tribunal, on its own motion and expressly in view of the passage of time, reappointed the appeal for hearing. At the first sitting following that reappointment, the appellant appeared through counsel and requested that the appeal be decided. At that same sitting, the Planning Authority raised a plea of desertion, arguing that the appeal had already, in substance, been abandoned due to prolonged inactivity. This sequence gives rise to an apparent difficulty. If the Tribunal itself reappointed the appeal, can it still be said that the appeal had lapsed? Does reappointment not amount to a form of activation?
The judgment resolves this tension, not by explicit declaration, but through the structure of its reasoning.
The Court identifies the decisive moment as the point when the appeal became capable of continuation—namely, once the related application was determined. From that point onward, the appellant “could and should” have taken steps to reactivate the appeal. The Court’s analysis is therefore retrospective. It focuses on what the appellant did—or failed to do—during that period. The subsequent reappointment in 2025 is not treated as altering that analysis. The Court does not regard it as curing the prior inactivity. Rather, it treats it as a procedural step that simply brought the matter back before the Tribunal, without resolving whether the appeal had already been abandoned. This becomes clearer when one considers the importance attached to timing. The plea of desertion was raised immediately at the first sitting following reappointment. The appellant had not, prior to that moment, taken any procedural step capable of demonstrating renewed interest. His appearance at that hearing was a response to the Tribunal’s listing of the case, not an independent initiative on his part.
The Court contrasts this with another case decided the same day, where the plea of desertion was raised only after the appellant had already participated in multiple hearings following reappointment. In that other case, the appellant’s conduct was sufficient to displace the presumption of abandonment. The distinction is telling. It shows that the Court is not treating reappointment as determinative. What matters is whether the appellant, through his own conduct, has demonstrated continued engagement with the appeal. In Borg, he had not.
The appellant also sought to rely on parallel constitutional proceedings as justification for the inactivity. This argument was rejected. The Court held that activity in separate proceedings does not preserve an appeal unless it is formally brought before the Tribunal. If the appellant wished to rely on those proceedings, he ought to have taken a procedural step within the appeal—such as requesting reappointment and seeking a suspension pending their outcome. No such step was taken.
The Court further emphasised that, in order to avoid a finding of abandonment, there must be activity within the appeal itself. External proceedings, however connected, do not suffice unless they are procedurally integrated.
The legal framework reinforces this approach. The Tribunal is empowered to treat an appeal as abandoned where the appellant fails to demonstrate interest in pursuing it. The reference to absence from hearings is illustrative rather than exhaustive. The inquiry is broader and turns on whether the appellant’s conduct, viewed as a whole, is consistent with an intention to pursue the appeal. Unlike civil proceedings—where abandonment may arise automatically after a defined period of inactivity—the planning regime operates through a rebuttable presumption. The Tribunal must assess whether the circumstances justify the inference of abandonment. In this case, the circumstances were clear. The appeal had remained inactive for several years after it became capable of continuation. The appellant took no step to revive it. The Tribunal intervened to list the case. The plea of desertion was raised immediately. From this, the governing principle emerges with precision. The reappointment of an appeal by the Tribunal is not, in itself, sufficient to displace a prior inference of abandonment. It is a procedural act of case management which restores the matter to the list, but does not replace the need for procedural initiative on the part of the appellant. What is required , to defeat abandonment, is conduct attributable to the appellant which demonstrates continued interest in the appeal. Where such conduct is absent, the Tribunal is entitled to conclude that the appeal has been abandoned, notwithstanding its subsequent reappointment.
The doctrine therefore turns on a single organising question: Has the appellant, within the appeal itself, acted in a manner consistent with an intention to pursue it? If the answer is negative, the appeal may be treated as having lapsed—not through formal withdrawal, but through abandonment inferred from sustained inactivity.
